People come and go, so I’m so used to be alone. All my life I lived like this – like a solitary pigeon in flight searching for his flock. Until one day in the vibrant autumn dusk, I saw you. Like a flash of lightning, the dormant spark inside me suddenly ignited sending chills down my spine. And then I realized I’ve fallen for an electrifying lady with braides and pony tails.

History is being re-visioned. The chapter that is once known as the dark ages of Philippine society is now being rewritten as its golden era. Propagandist did an incredible job of making public opinion sway towards the glorification of what the rest of the world consider as the second most corrupt leader in recent history. Leveraging the incredible power of the internet and the engaging effects of internet memes, their rewritten version effectively substituted history textbooks and peer-reviewed theses by scholars, journalist, historians and academics as the public’s trusted references. If Flat-Earthers, Anti-Vaxers and Climate-Change Deniers ever needed a powerful disinformation machinery to propagate their obsolete beliefs and persuade the public to abandon science, they sure as hell require the might of the Marcos family’s internet army of trolls.

Artwork by Vincent Trinidad

These are the men and women (in internet military uniforms I supposed) who succeeded in convincing millennials and the older, first time Facebook-user generation that the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos is the greatest president the Philippines ever had, far greater than all the country’s past chief executives combined.

As far as I can recall, this massive revisionist campaign started when somebody made the motive of comparing the then incumbent president Noynoy Aquino’s administration to that of the late dictator. The Marcos and the Aquinos, although related to some degree, are the political nemesis of each other ever since. When the younger Aquino’s presidency was bombarded by accusations of incompetency such as the handling of the infamous Manila Hostage Crisis, the slow, inefficient and chaotic disaster response to the Yolanda Victims, the Mamasapano clash that killed 44 elite members of the PNP’s Special Action Force and the shocking level of corruption revealed in the Pork Barrel Scam perpetuated by Janet Lim-Napoles, the idea of a Philippine utopia under FEM’s reign was put forward as a “better-than-this” response to the younger Aquino’s blunders. Suddenly, an influx of content declaring Marcos as the greatest/the best president gained relevance and reverence among the social media generation. Comparisons such as the Philippines was supposed to be second to Japan as the richest Asian country during FEM’s presidency circulated over the internet:

CTTO whoever you are

But a quick google search of the country’s economic statistics from the start up to the peaceful end of his presidency would unmask it as nothing but a big, fat and blatant lie. Nevertheless it still gained legitimacy to the masses perhaps because of the combination of fad the internet memes brought and the gullibility deeply rooted to the Filipino consciousness. Another argument being carted around by revisionists is the long list of social projects accomplished and infrastructures erected under FEM’s administration. While its true that most of those buildings were constructed and erected during his term and up until now is still standing proud serving the nation, the financial source for the development of these national infrastructures is through foreign loans acquired in great amounts. Under the Marcos regime, the country’s foreign debt skyrocketed from $360 million in 1962 to $26.2 billion in 1986 – liabilities we’ve been paying for the last 30 years and to continue on until the next decades to come. Marcos’s goal of strengthening the Philippines to be internationally competitive may have been well-intentioned, but its execution ultimately led to widespread corruption and mismanagement. The infrastructure legacy Marcos apologist are claiming – while clearly beneficial – is a double bladed sword: the economic growth they are bragging about is debt-driven making the Filipinos pay the ultimate price of literally paying for the debt without getting much from the cake. On the other hand, him, Imelda and their cronies are enjoying the inflow of cash coming directly from the national coffers.

CTTO

After the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986, Ferdinand Marcos and his family fled to Hawaii in a United States Air Force C-130. Upon arrival at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, the Marcos family filled out an official Customs list of their “household effects.”

Just where the hell did they get those staggering amounts of riches if not from looting the entire country’s fortune until nothing is left? How is Imelda Marcos – admitting she doesn’t even know how rich they are – able to jet around the world at will, go binge-shopping to the most glamorous and fabulous malls of Europe and America, throw lavished parties and events to the most privileged people of the planet, send her offspring to the most prestigious schools of the world, rub elbows and mingle to royalties, kings and emperors and generally live her life larger than everything else when his husband’s official presidential salary is only $6500 a year?

Imelda Marcos is one hell of a bitch. Young, gorgeous and pretty she worked as a singer in a music store to attract customers, married the then congressman Marcos from Ilocos Norte in 1954. As his wife, many pundits and colleagues agree that while Marcos was a brilliant politician it was her charm and persuasion that ultimately catapulted her husband to the presidency in 1965. The newly inaugurated first lady then sent US presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey some really personal tips on how he could make his way to the White House:

“You’ve got to control the site of the convention. You’ve got to have your people everywhere. We had the bellhops. We had the waiters. We had the elevator boys. We had the desk clerks. We had everybody talking about Marcos. But the most important thing was that we had all the telephone operators so the other side never received their telephone calls!”

Their first few years in office was marked by economic growth primarily driven by massive foreign loans from international financial organizations such as the IMF. Coming along with this economic expansion of the country and increase government spending is the steady accumulation of questionable wealth manifesting on now legendary excesses and spectacular extravagances of the couple. What’s so disturbing is that they aren’t afraid of flashing their doubtful richness – Imelda’s wild shopping sprees are epic in proportions. In New York, she spent $2 million dollars in assorted jewelries alone. She bought a $3.5 million dollar Michelangelo painting in Rome. On her way home, she ordered the aircraft she’s on to make a U-turn back to Rome just because she forgot to buy freaking cheese. While passing through the San Francisco International Airport, she bought $2000 dollars worth of.. guess what? Chewing gums. A Sotheby Parke Bernet auction in 1981 was abruptly cancelled when Imelda gleefully purchased the entire catalogue. Best known to the world because of her shoe collections that required an entire museum to house, its only a preview of the ignominy that was revealed during and after her stint as the First Lady of a struggling third world nation.

ctto

Ferdinand Marcos was believed to had embezzled more or less $10 billion dollars from the national funds during his term. The level of corruption, rightfully termed “institutionalized“, is unparalleled and unprecedented in the country with him and his various cronies and political allies benefiting the most. Apologist would say that he built schools, hospitals, bridges and various public infrastructures without considering the fact that of the total cost of the projects made, half of the amount would go to Marcos and his cronies, kickbacks not yet included. One of the most well-known scandal involves the fiasco of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant when its broker, Businessman Herminio Disini, husband of Imelda Marcos’ cousin was charged and ordered prosecuted with criminal cases for corruption. Disini’s first case, filed on June 30, 2004, accused him of Corruption of Public Officials penalized under the Revised Penal Code for “offering his shares in Vulcan Industrial and Mining Corp. (2.5 B shares of stock having a book value of P100 each) and the Energy Corp. (4 B shares at P100 each) to Marcos through the Engineering and Construction Company of Asia, owned and controlled by Marcos, to allow Disini to seek and obtain for Burns and Roe and Westinghouse Electrical Corp. (Westinghouse) the contracts to do the engineering and architectural design and to construct the Philippine Nuclear Power Plant Project at Morong, Bataan which contracts were eventually awarded to Burns and Roe and Westinghouse.” He was also accused of “using his personal connection to Marcos… to request and receive from Burns and Roe the amount of One Million US Dollars, both entities having transactions and applications with the government of the Philippines, which amounts were given to Disini in consideration of his seeking and obtaining the contract for the construction of the Philippine Nuclear Power Plant, which contract, through the intervention of Marcos, Disini was able to obtain for Burns and Roe and Westinghouse.” Disini died in 2014, burying with him the prospect of the government for the recovery of the ill-gotten wealth he had. The case of another crony, Alfonso Lim Sr. was a victory for the government. The SANDIGANBAYAN ordered the heirs of Lim Sr. to return some 511 million pesos worth of properties obtained through unlawful logging concessions. While the court didn’t mentioned any liability in the Marcos family’s part, it isn’t hard to believe they aren’t involved in this illegal logging activities that covers 534,000 hectares of forest lands in four provinces. Lim Sr. was an ardent supporter of Marcos since his bid for the Senate in the early 1960’s and the level of influence he enjoyed under Marcos was described in this Inquirer article. Other cronies, such as Fabian Ver and Roberto Benedicto, took their secrets to the grave while still others entered compromise deals with the government to either avoid prosecution or serving jail time. As Nick Davies, a British multi-awarded investigative journalist in his The Guardian article puts it:

Over the following nine years, an estimated 34,000 trade unionists, student leaders, writers and politicians were tortured with electric shocks, heated irons and rape; 3,240 men and women were dumped dead in public places; 398 others simply disappeared. With total power over politics, the president closed in on the country’s wealth.

This was no longer just about kickbacks. Marcos started to steal whole companies, using the crude tactics of a gangster. He wanted the nation’s electricity company, Meralco, owned by Eugenio Lopez, patriarch of one of the families who had run the country for centuries. He had Lopez’s son charged with plotting to assassinate him, which carried the death penalty. The old oligarch handed over his company for $220m (it was worth $400m). To have gunmen is a gangster’s requirement; to have gunmen in uniforms, with all the power of the state behind them, is a gangster’s dream.

Yet most of Marcos’s takeovers involved no violence. Martial law allowed him, literally, to write his own law: his decrees passed straight on to the statute book. When he wanted to take over the sugar industry, he set up companies and then issued decrees that allowed them to dominate the planting, milling and international marketing of Philippine sugar, which accounted for 27% of export earnings. He then created a Philippine Exchange Company, decreed it should handle all foreign sugar sales and used its monopoly position to buy from farmers at rock-bottom prices and sell at vast profit. This allowed him to buy Northern Lines, which had the contract to ship the sugar overseas. Finally, he decreed that the sugar industry be exempt from minimum-wage law, with the result that 500,000 labourers saw their income fall to less than $1 a day, making even more profit.

Photo by Nick Davies

These blunders only goes to prove that the biggest criminals wear ties and not tattoos. As soon as Corazon Aquino assumed office, her first and foremost act as the head of the revolutionary government was the establishment of the Presidential Commission on Good Governance. Exercising in full might and capacity both executive and legislative powers, she issued Executive Order No. 1 on February 28, 1986 that created the agency solely dedicated in going after and retrieving the ill-gotten wealth of the dictator and prosecuting those who conspired in the plunder of the nation. The commission had waged a protracted legal battle against the defendants, victorious on some occasions but being sidelined most of the time due to pesky technicalities invoked by the defendants just to delay the proceedings. Justice delayed is justice denied. Thirty years had passed but only a fraction of the total wealth amassed by the Marcos’ was recovered and not a single family member nor a crony had served any jail time.

“Time has devious ways of devouring evidence, memory and the will to prosecute.”

– former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, in his column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 27, 2011.

The case of his interment is obviously political in nature. President Duterte openly admits that Imee Marcos supported him in his run for the presidency so one can safely assume – given the politics – that Duterte’s approval for FEM to be burried at LNMB is a payment for her support to him. Unless they can come up with some other clever explanation that would dispel it, observers will be skeptical. But I would concur that its just righteous for President Duterte to inhibit from this issue because, while its his prerogative to allow for the burial to push on, its not in his executive power to bar the family from burying FEM there. Its true that there are no existing jurisprudence that would prevent FEM from being interred there and the high court only decided from the perspective of its legality. But the moral implications of it are obviously disregarded.

National healing cannot simply come when the President pronounces it. It can only come through a process that leads to social justice. Justice does not come with just forgetting.

– Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, in his dissenting opinion regarding the burial of Marcos at LNMB

The Court is empowered to do justice, and justice in this case means preventing a whitewash of the sins of Marcos against the Filipino people.

If the Court unduly shies away from addressing the principal question of whether a decision to bury the former President would contradict the anti-Martial Law and human rights underpinnings and direction of the 1987 Constitution, it would, wittingly or unwittingly, weaken itself by diminishing its role of constitutional liberties of our people.

Not everything that is legal is moral – a soldier killing an enemy combatant is legal, but killing in any form will always be immoral. A man guilty of corruption and plunder, grave misconduct of executive power and human rights abuses that serve only his own interest does not deserve to be laid at rest beside the honorable who genuinely fought and died in service of the nation. The Marcos family put forward the notion that he is a veteran soldier of WWII but his records put into question his service. The US Army discredited Ferdinand Marcos’ war time role as a leader of the guerrilla unit Ang Mga Maharlika and the various medals and decorations he supposedly earned were all fake. He even wanted to rename the country Maharlika to fulfill his delusion of grandeur. And finally, by arguing that he is a decorated soldier and a president with outstanding achievements would make a good comparison to Adolf Hitler – decorated WWI veteran and leader of a rearmed Nazi Germany that ultimately led to the conquest and destruction of most of Europe during WWII. Did Germans seek to inter him in their own war graves on the grounds that he made Germany great again after their humiliating defeat in the First World War?

ctto

It may well be considered a flagrant desecration of the sacred grounds of the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani because there rest in honored glory those who died in the service of the Filipino nation – is there any honor left to a lying dictator who was forcibly removed from his office and put to exile by his own people due to his shameless acts of plunder, corruption and abuse of power?

This [People Power Revolution] is the strongest form of dishonorable discharge from office since it is meted out by the direct act of the sovereign people.

Interring Marcos on the hallowed grounds of the LNMB, which was established to show ‘the nation’s esteem and reverence’ for those who fought for freedom and democracy for our country, extols Marcos and exculpates him from human rights violations.

Nevertheless the interment proceeded hastily – at the risk of being put into contempt by the court – obviously because they wanted to accomplish everything before any further delaying tactics by anti-Marcos groups were consolidated and used against them.

image from the Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines

The recent public clamor caused by the hasty interment of the late dictator on the sacred grounds of the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani revealed a deep divide among Filipinos. It was the disagreement between two generations about the legacy of the Marcos presidency that is the cynosure of the heated discussions online. History is written by the victors as the old adage goes, but the abundance of information and the relative ease of access to it today combined with the inherent capability of humans to separate the truth from the lies will never leave one snared in the traps of ignorance. Those who forgot, or in our case, deliberately refuse to learn the lessons of the past are bound to repeat it. The infamous Proclamation 1081 dated September 21, 1972 is Ferdinand Marcos’ answer to the rising civil unrest in the country. Civil liberties were suppressed, the Writ of Habeas Corpus was suspended, media and publications are curtailed and those who dissent are killed outright or kidnapped, tortured and dumped on the streets – worst the corpse will never be seen again. People who lived through the brutal years of Martial Law worked hard to preserve its memories through education of the youth so that future leaders will never allow it to happen again. They are now perplexed by the ongoing historical revisionism of the era. Twenty one turbulent and bloody years of dictatorship seemed just nothing for the generation of today because – some reasoned – they weren’t alive back then and never got to experience it first hand; dismissing it as only a relic of the past and the present shall move on from it. First, you don’t have to be alive back then to convince yourself that that era is full of horrors. You cannot deny the systematic killings of six million Jews simply because you weren’t alive in 1943. Anecdotes from victims are enough of a tale to shed some lights on how brutal Martial Law were – and they are the lucky ones who lived to tell the stories to us. Perhaps, would you be lucky like them had its you who’ve been alive back then when the killing of dissidents were rampant? Second, dismissing it and saying we shall move on from it is an arrogant display of indifference as a human being. Can you tell the family of Liliosa Hilao – Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila student, prolific writer, raped in front of her 16-year -old sister, later found with her internal organs all gone and vagina sawed off – to just forget about what happened and carry on? Can you tell Maria Elena Ang – a then 23-year-old UP Journalism student, beaten, electrocuted, water cured, and sexually violated – to let go of her past? If this is the concept of moving on from an infamous period of our history the youth of today chose to adhere, then we are bound to produce tyrants in the future. Millennials complain that the post-martial law was even worst than before. Today corruption is still rampant, oligarchs gets more richer while the poor gets even poorer and generally nothing since had changed. EDSA 1 for them is useless for it fostered even more decadence to our society. Worst is that the late president Corazon Aquino – a plain housewife with absolutely no prior political experience compelled to restore a ruined nation – is being blamed for everything from corruption to the proliferation of drugs when in fact, she only inherited all of it from her predecessor. EDSA 1, with all its warts and flaws, its image of Imperial Manila deciding the fate of 7,000 lesser islands, is by far – at least to me – the greatest display of democracy the world had ever seen. I must explicitly state that this perception does not kowtow to the Aquino’s ’cause I might be accused of being partisan or a paid yellowtard or anything else that may ruin my integrity, but we owe everything to it. Not to the presidents and administrations that came after it, not to the society that had become before and after it, but to the movement itself. If martial law was still in effect today, I may not be able to write on this blog – this blog may not even exist in the first place – and express my view, we may not be able to rant about the horrendous traffic in EDSA or in Cebu or in Davao and we may not be able to criticize the government without the fear of being arrested and thrown to jail or worst be abducted, tortured and salvaged to oblivion. Just being able to write, express yourself and generally do whatever you want is a good enough reason to be grateful that EDSA 1 happened. If the president or the government doesn’t do anything for the benefit of the people, the people can shake Malacanan Palace or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the local City Hall for their predicaments to be heard – do that during Marcos’ martial law and you’ll be found maimed and dead floating on Pasig river. We can assemble ourselves for a peaceful demonstration to demand for better public services – we do that during Marcos’ martial law and dive bombers of the Philippine Air Force like the OB-10 Broncos would come down to and unhesitatingly rain hell to us. We can always question the merits of government appointees – do that to Marcos’ daughter Imee and you will never see the light of tomorrow. That is the triumphant legacy of EDSA 1 the youth of today openly deplores. To glorify a dead dictator guilty of crimes that happened right under the nose of the Filipino people is a departure not just to patriotism but to rationalism and plain common sense. With all the blatant acts of thievery, publicized excesses and extravagances, mountains of criminal cases filed and still pending, thousands of tortured and dead bodies left in his wake, thousands more who just disappeared and never been seen again and billions of laundered and missing funds, no self-respecting person with a brain and a sense of nationalism will ever consider Ferdinand Marcos as a hero.

ctto

The youth of today seemed to be at odds with recorded and documented history. Anecdotes of the martial law era are now being dismissed as mere yellow propaganda. By their own judgement – with utter disregard to the brutality of his regime – the Marcos’ presidency is by far the greatest. And their judgement is based – as I always suspect – on internet memes. These online artifacts prevalent in the social media landscape today is an incredibly effective tool in starting all kinds of discussion – in this case, about Philippine politics. Internet memes are the culprits I suspect that kick-started this historical revisionism about Ferdinand Marcos. While there are people and groups out there that are still loyalist despite everything, the glorification of the late dictator really started, gained relevance and reverence among the youth when the first memes declaring him as the “best president ever” came out in direct parallel to the Aquino’s. It will not make any sense if one does not include the Aquino’s in the equation. With all the shame that is eternally branded in Marcos because of martial law, praising him would be really absurd. But putting the Aquino’s – with all their equally despicable presidential failures – beside him then cleverly comparing his achievements with them using humor and satire, you can make a millennial pause, shrink and think twice. Pump in more fuel to the flame – such as the bloody events in the peasant rally in Mendiola, the Hacienda Luisita Massacres, and the apparent incompetence of Noynoy Aquino in handling state affairs – couple it with virtuous catch-phrases like “disiplina (discipline) ang kailangan” and you will get a generation longing for the dictatorship instead. That is the problem with internet memes and the social media as a whole. Regardless of its merits, its engaging and convincing power is undeniable and unstoppable. The young people of today – and sometimes the older, first-time-social-media-user generation susceptible to internet hoaxes – shaped their opinions based on what content they saw/read in their feeds and its likability (the more-the-likers-and-sharers-the-more-likely-this-is-true logic comes into play with this) and a smaller consideration is being given to the traditional, fact-checking and unbiased news/feature sources. While this legitimate organizations put in the effort of cleansing their articles of factual errors and biased tendencies, internet memes have no restrictions at all. Anyone who knows how to use a mouse, keyboard and any basic image-editing tool in a computer can create a meme, its potential to go viral depends on the creativity of its author. This means that much of the information spread through this medium is an opinion at best and a deception at worst. Furthermore, the likability of a person or an issue in the social media relies more on appearance than its substance. Remember how teenage girls swooned over to Sandro Marcos, son of Bongbong Marcos, who sent out a controversial tweet that implies something about his articulacy? Remember how Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency through a populist platform that the problem of drugs should be dealt with an iron hand, even though several international organizations cautioned about its futility? Fuse all of these with the now renowned gullibility possessed by Filipinos and you can turn the likes of Hitler as a patron saint of any local barangay fiestas in the country. You can stand atop a perch, declare yourself as the messiah and you can expect a flock of curious followers to surround you immediately – an incredibly easy way to get, you, rich in just a matter of time through donations. This is the sad reality of a society already fed up with the life in a third world country, forever stuck in the quagmire of poverty with their hopes being placed on people who only cares for themselves and no vision of a prosperous future. They will cling on anything that promises to pull them out of destitution without realizing the dangers of the horrors of the past being repeated. This ongoing historical revisionism is a mistake both in the part of educators for failing to effectively show the horrors of martial law and teaching the youth of the essence of critical thinking and in part also to the youth for taking for granted the lessons of the past and their adamant divergence to it and its effects on our present society.

This is mine but not me of course

My alma mater, the Philippine State College of Aeronautics, is teeming with students passionate about how great Ferdinand Marcos is. This is based about the fact that our school was established by a presidential decree signed by Marcos so the gratitude towards him comes naturally with it. But I doubt Marcos had any personal involvement with the establishment of our school at all except from the signing of the decree so I can reasonably conclude that the over-gratification is ridiculous. The same goes with the trend of his glorification – just because he constructed so many things doesn’t mean we can safely turn a blind eye on the crimes he committed and the billions he stole. He may had made many good things but it doesn’t justify the bad things he did. In his rule that lasted 21 years, its just fair to expect many things from him – he delivered, but enriched himself and his cronies in the process at the expense of the economy. But the alarming thing is, along with the rewriting of history, the culture of corruption is being reinforced – evident by the youth’s total disregard of how the Marcos’ ransack the country. It isn’t surprising at all to know that the province of Ilocos Norte remains a solid Marcos haven – the culture of affinity among Filipinos is deeply rooted and an integral part of our national identity – while some loyalist will remain loyalist out of utang na loob for a favor the Marcos did for them. If you’re a politician in this country, you just have to put up some visible projects, show up to wherever gatherings they need your presence and just keep your constituents contented and you will have the freedom to use your vested power any way you want. Just restrain yourself from over indulging the way the Marcos’ did and your reelection is guaranteed. This is the weakness of the Philippine electorate many crooks and opportunist exploit. They knew that by just keeping their constituent well fed nobody will complain. You can give most of them a piece of the meat and they will not complain about the size of your part – only the equally greedy will demand for more. Corruption is personified in all of us. From how we bribe traffic enforcers so we could get away from our traffic violations to our habitual laziness to use the overpass to cross the streets – basically whenever it spelled convenience for us we resort to it. Therefore we will never arrive on the day when corruption would be just a thing of the past.

The entirety of this blog entry is the explanation I offer on why the Marcos’ are now as relevant as before. Its just easy to shape an opinion from reading something witty printed on a bumper sticker than doing tons of reading and research. Its just easy to find an identity for ourselves from someone popular – regardless of his/her background – than to do soul-searching. Life would be easy for all of us if we don’t question authority and just get along with them provided we have a share from the cake. And its very easy for us to ignore the terrors of the past simply because we were fortunate enough to not experience it firsthand. We are threading on a dangerous path of historical ignorance and the return to power of the once wicked family is just one election away. And we are enthusiastic about it. We are excited about it. We are eager to vote for them and put them back to Malacanan. But when the question of why despite everything they did was asked, we simply shrug the inquiry off and just walk away from the discussion. When further confronted, the curse of cognitive dissonance makes the conversation unbearable. Real change in our society doesn’t come from the people we elect, it comes first and foremost to ourselves. But before we begin the long journey towards healing, reconciliation and nation-building we must first educate ourselves to be more analytical, skeptical, critical and rational. Try to look around before jumping on the bandwagon. Doubt and question everything. Never become complacent and place fairness and justice to the highest pedestals of our personal principles. And finally, never forget the past, learn the lessons of it and apply it to the present so we can have a clear vision of what is yet to come.

ctto

With our collective consciousness armed by these weapons of intelligence we can now begin to disassemble the machinery behind the Marcos myth. Its true that the sins of the father is not the sins of the son because the son – and the daughter – made their own act of evil. They are all full-grown adults during their father’s reign, having no problem benefiting and splurging from the ill-gotten money they had and today they’re not done yet; they are actively trying to rewrite and whitewash history. And there is this dream of Imelda Marcos of a day they would reclaim the power their family once had. The fulfillment of that dream rest to us. The electorate. The Filipino society. We shall NEVER let that happen again. Once is enough and twice will be too much for us. Ferdinand Marcos IS NOT A HERO and another Marcos assuming residence of Malacanan spells doom for the Philippines.

Special thanks to Ms. Caroline Kennedy of https://anywhereiwander.com/, I relied heavily on her blog for references regarding Imelda Marcos’ debauchery and the tales of Martial Law victims.

Special thanks also to my TL and Supervisor for not reprimanding me for blogging. A huge part of this blog entry was written during my working hours haha!

Dedicated to all the students of the Philippine State College of Aeronautics (VAB, BAB, FAB, MBEAB, Flying School campuses) ranting on their secret files FB page in defense of Marcos.

So I was munching on some crispy chicharon sold alongside the streets of Rosario, Pasig City by an old but ecstatic man that is pissed off of Pres. Duterte allowing the husband of the woman who instigated harassment of his favorite band The Beatles to be buried at the Heroe’s Cemetery when suddenly a Jollibee hitching a ride on a jeepney passed by to my amused bewilderment.

ctto

It was an absolute WTF moment that induced upon me some wild crazy thoughts about some cartoon characters I used to watch when I was still a kid that I just want to discuss here. To my realization:

Why is Tarzan – in his cartoon series being watched by children aged 7 and less – dangling in the trees with a girl clinging in his body almost naked?

Why does Cinderella always comes home late? Where does she hangs out?

Pinocchio is a habitual liar, hence his nose.

Aladdin is a fucking thief, why does the police not coming into him?

Batman drives with complete disregard to the safety of everyone when chasing his preys. Talk about impunity at its greatest level.

Why is Snow White living in a house together with 7 males?

Why is it that Popeye – a tattooed, drunk-ass sailor who took brawling with other dudes as a hobby – considered a role model to the youth?

Why is Donald Duck and family had a roasted Turkey/Chicken/Duck in their table as a meal? That’s freaking cannibalism isn’t it?

Since I don’t use Facebook anymore because of all the snake-shits that is prevalent on the platform today, I wanna share some of my previous counter-arguments against a closed friend’s proposition regarding the recent petition to shut down Mocha Uson’s blog. My friend, whose name shall be hidden, is a passionate Duterte supporter and an apologetic that seems to have an unlimited supply of defensive ammunition to shield his beloved president from his critics, including me. To be clear, we don’t have bad bloods for each other, just some sort of intellectual brawl between us that is totally not personal but political in nature. Here is his proposition:

So here is my rebut:

I believe this is an honest mistake from the side of PDI. Whoever wrote this wrong article might have already been sack from his/her post. Yes, they have records of publishing misleading news but I can say its irrelevant and doesn’t have sway since a good percentage of the masses doesn’t even read broadsheets anyway because of, you know, the internet (ok its an assumption, but it can readily be observe). Publications like them put out not just news but other topics as well and its categorized. To say that they’re deliberately misleading the public using their prints as a whole is like saying the entire PNP is guilty of the crime committed by that PO3 Kho. And again, to say that the PDI is misleading the public is the same as accusing the society that they had no discerning ability to sort out the lies from the truths. Hindi naman tayo ganun ka tanga dba? No, you cannot pull out a “Dilawan” trump card here, coz the president of Inquirer, by marriage, is a Romualdez. Remember that.

Rappler and Inquirer are legitimate news outlet run by trained and well-educated well-informed journalist who goes out of the field to gather information while that Mocha and her blog suddenly appeared out of nowhere and declared herself the citizen journalist even without prior experience in the art of news/feature writing with sources of questionable credibility and basically relying on gossips as her source. Remember how she posted about AdMU’s lampoon issue, claiming it was secretly distributed in the campus as was told to her by one of her followers when in fact the satirical print was out in the open? Remember how she criticizes USAID without a single clue of what the organization’s mission is?

Reason # 2:

Petitioning Rappler and Inquirer to be silenced just because of publishing erroneous articles that by all means can be clarified and corrected, which they always do as per SOP, is preposterous. Matutulad lang to dun sa ginawa ni Sasot, international in scope.. international na kahihiyan na pinagtatawanan.

Reason # 3:

Rappler and Inquirer DOES NOT curse anybody. Nor they threaten anyone who chose to dissent. They present valid and proper counter-arguments in a formal decorum. On the other hand, you’re frontwoman is so used into calling dissenters names and use sarcasm (kayo na po ang matalino; kayo na po ang disente) to masked her inability to fire back intelligibly.

Reason #4:

The only crime the writers of these news outlet is guilty of is their publication of what the president said and did coming from himself and his own mouth which is apparently irritable to his supporters for they felt it is being slapped right to their faces the blunders of their super hero.

Another case of your favorite false dichotomy/dilemma fallacy. You’re reducing the option to only just two when in fact there are a plethora of other options to consider (search for other sources, try to verify the claims, or just inhibit and don’t give a fuck). I’m sorry to say this, but it makes you look very very stupid every time you make use of it. Seriously, when will you have the time to read the link I gave to you? Para sayo din un kaibigan para naman mas maipagtanggol mo ng maayos, logically, ang idol mo.

Ok so lets just pretend for the moment I bought this line of reasoning you presented. This argument is really really absurd. To follow your logic, you are painting “professionals” as lying bastards that are out to get a piece of you. Are you not a “professional” print maker? You mean to say, you can fool your clients at your will, and they’re at your mercy depending on your mood? Isn’t Mocha Uson a professional too? Professional dancer turned political commentator that is out to spread lies? And what constitute an ordinary person that is infallible? Is there such a person?

Everyone can be mistaken. Lahat ay nagkakamali. You cannot say na tao lang sya at nagkakamali to prove her legitimacy because posting something without fact-checking it first and then repeating that same process again isn’t tolerable anymore. Once is enough, twice is too much and to repeat it again for the third time is absolute deliberateness of the deceit.

The petition to silence her blog is not to curb her freedom of speech. No one can EVER take away her right to speak. Even I, myself will fight to the death just so she can speak her thoughts out. But she cannot invoke that right to defend her habit of spreading lies and misinformation and reinforce the fallacy of false dilemma (If ayaw mo kay Duterte therefore dilawan ka!) to define the political spectrum of Philippine politics. Isn’t it ironic when she said, during the campaign period, that we don’t need freedom but discipline? Isn’t it hypocritical to read about her rants against CHR and the concept of human rights as a whole when these institution are the very reason she could be the citizen journalist she wants?

Feel free to leave some thoughts on the comments sections below or in my ‘Contact Me’ page.

There are thoughts I’m trying to avoid. I’m struggling to suppress it ‘cause it might distract my already sidetracked attention induced by my addiction… on tetris! Damn! I need to focus. I’ve already met my instructors on my 2nd bid to pass Analytic Geometry and Advanced Algebra subjects at school so I think setting them as the cynosure of my thoughts is the best thing I should do. Napaka-bano ko pa naman sa Algebra, kaasar. But sometimes, thoughts OF YOU of irrelevant things seeps out, drawing me away. It keeps on popping out like an annoying ad from Alibaba.com and worst, it urges me to delve in and hurt myself again and just forget about everything. No, I can’t do that. I can’t risk this endeavor to something that is obviously hopeless which is you full of uncertainty. But I’m missing you. I miss our late night calls, kinky conversations, senseless topics, our concurrence on how stupid Duterte is and the erotic talks and laughs we make. My mind tells me its only confined in this virtual reality and will never go anywhere, but my heart still insist to indulge myself into it. You’re already with an amazing company of people and with someone that is just one proposal away to forever. Which lead me to the conclusion that I didn’t left any impression with your life at all and I don’t serve any purpose to you other than being part of your social media circle that only exist within this virtual world.

So there. The thoughts I’m trying to suppress, I let it out. My honesty is both a virtue and a frailty. A virtue because I want to stay true to myself as far as possible and a frailty because no matter how hard I try I will never be able to hide the fact that I’m so in love with you even if its causing me depressing pain. Believe me, I’m trying hard to let go of it just like how you want it. I’m fond of noble things so I guess my life’s purpose is to serve for the benefit of humanity and not to someone who doesn’t even bother to ask me how am I. So I’m gonna focus on this. I’m going to finish this. Whoever waits for me in the end, if there would be anyone, if its you, I’ll be glad and become in love even more. If there is none, its ok. I’m so used to it. I’ve already submitted myself to that fact a long time ago, that I am and will be alone. Forever.